In the 2022 EuroBasket tournament, they call Group B “the group of death.”
That’s because four of the six teams in the group can legitimately say they have a shot to win the event, including Germany, Lithuania and France.
But they all will still have to go through Slovenia, which continued to roll on Saturday with a 103-88 blowout of Hungary in Cologne, Germany.
The Slovenians now are 2-0 and tied with Germany in Group B play. Everybody else has at least one loss and Lithuania is 0-2. Each team has three more games before the top four move on to the knockout rounds.
Thanks to Luka Dončić, the Slovenians are looking like locks to be one of the top seeds moving into the EuroBasket version of the Sweet 16.
The Mavericks’ superstar point guard remained unbeaten in EuroBasket play. Slovenia went 9-0 with him playing in 2017 to sweep its way to the title. Now they are 2-0 this time around.
On Saturday, he had 20 points, seven rebounds and seven assists through three quarters and was not needed in the fourth.
The Slovenians went up 18-2 without Luka so much as scoring a point, although he did have two rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal in those first six minutes.
The rest was pretty much just for show.
When Dončić threw in a 30-footer on a stepback in the third quarter, the lead was 72-45.
The Slovenians are in action again on Sunday in what should be a tougher test against Bosnia and Herzegovina at 10:45 a.m., Dallas time.
Meanwhile, the Greek team continued its run through Group C with a 85-81 victory over Italy in Milan.
Tyler Dorsey, the Mavericks’ two-way player, remained hot from the perimeter and had 23 points and hit 6-of-10 from 3-point range for the Greeks, who were led by Giannis Antotokounmpo with 25 points and 11 rebounds.
Dorsey had a 3-pointer with 2:23 to go that put the Greeks up 81-71, which pretty much made a comeback by the Italians impossible. They were playing without Danilo Gallinari, the sharpshooter who became a Boston Celtic this summer and is out with a torn ACL.
Greece improved to 2-0 and is tied with Ukraine atop Group C.
The tournament runs through Sept. 18 and Group play ends on Thursday.
Twitter: @ESefko
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